Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Magic Bullet




My mother-in-law gave us a Magic Bullet (MB) set a couple of Chritmases ago and recently I have found this a very useful thing to have in the kitchen. MB is sold for $99.99+s/h via home tv shopping. I would not bother going that route as this is also sold in local stores like Canadian Tire(as with most home tv shopping products) and for the same price less shipping and handling too. There's also comfort in being able to return it much easier although I doubt you would want to do that as this is quite a handy thing to have around (more on this in a bit).





The $99.99 package comes with all the bells and whistles - the base/motor, two blades, a tall and a short cup, shaker and steamer tops, resealable lids, four party mugs, a recipe book and two "bonus" items namely the blender and the juicer. There are smaller variations of this package sold in local stores for less. For example, you can get a smaller package for $39.99 that only has the motor, blades and part mugs and lids. We have one of these smaller variations and my MB comes with the base, two blades, tall/short cups, lids, four party mugs and the recipe book. If I were to buy this, I would go for the smaller variations of the package.








The tv infomercial claims this product will do practically everything short of open heart surgery for you and in 10 seconds or less! It claims to do so by cutting down your prep time and cleaning to virtually nothing. It also describes MB being able to chop, grate and puree things like onion, cheese etc. Honestly, I would say that is stretching it a lot - the infomercial is indeed quite misleading. Having said that, this is still a nice thing to have around in the kitchen (more on this further down) but I would go for the smaller variation of the package.



My observations:


  • It doesn't really cut down your prep time unless all your ingredients come pre-washed and pre-cut into small pieces that would fit in the MB cups. You would still wash your ingredients, and use a knife and cutting board at the very least.

  • It most definitely will not replace your food processor for a lot of your bigger kitchen tasks. Smaller kitchen tasks, sure, but then who busts out their food processor for those.

  • It cannot chop things for you as everything pretty much gets pureed in there as can be expected from any blender.

  • I personally would not make the Alfredo sauces that they showed on the informercial / recipe book by grating cheese and cream and then popping it in the microwave - yuck (I can only imagine how bland or awful that must taste). But I would use MB to make salsas, guacemole and even pestos - don't expect anything chunky though.

  • I don't have the juicer and the blender attachments but with that small a base, I doubt you can do much with those bigger attachments. You'd be better off saving your $60 from the full package and just get a real full-size blender. Juicers are more expensive, of course, and there's a reason for that. You're looking for power when you buy a juicer and I doubt that small base can deliver that.

  • I would use MB to make veggie or fruit shakes at home. In fact, if only for this reason, I give this product a must buy.

  • I've used this for grinding nuts and spices and it worked just fine.



My family loves to drink fruit shakes and my husband would often have one for breakfast. I use my MB to prepare individual fruit shakes and the individual prep-serve mugs make making fruitshakes a breeze. I take out 3 mugs and place frozen or fresh fruit in them. Add some water/juice and some fructose for sweetness, buzz it in the MB and it's good to go. For my husband's serving, I also put in some whey and almonds slivers for a more balanced breakfast. The resealable lids allow my husband to bring his fruitshake to work and drink it there. When done, I just pop the mugs into the dishwasher and done. Easy! For sure, a lot easier than busting out the fullsize blender, preparing the same drink for everyone, and then washing that big jug.





In summary: A good buy if you like making fruit shakes at home. Useful for making shakes, grinding nuts/spices/cheese for which it's enough to get smaller package (versus the complete $99.99 package). Will not replace your food processor, will not necessarily cut down your prep time. Buy from local stores (versus from home tv shopping).

this coffee break @ 3:30 PM